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Welcome to Aswan. This was my first stop in Egypt outside of Cairo.
it’s a city in the very south, where the Egyptian part of the Nile begins after Lake Nasser.
But that lake wasn’t always there. It is the largest artificial lake in the world,
created when the High Dam was built in the 60s to control flooding in the Nile and provide hydroelectric power for Egypt.
Unfortunately this new artificial lake flooded ancestral lands and displaced the ethnic group known as the Nubians,
who had been living there since ancient times.
They now have villages with mostly Nubian populations around this area,
one of the largest being on Elephantine island.
I met several of them, one of whom sailed my Felucca boat down the Nile,
and another, Gasser, who let me ask him some questions to share the story of his people.
We are in Aswan.
And I want to talk about Nubian people... Can you tell me a little about Nubian history?
Well, the history of the Nubians is a long story... Nubia was a great kingdom, which could be found south of the Egyptian Pharaonic Kingdom,
It was a Kingdom between Egypt and Sudan for a long time and we had our customs, our traditions,
our language, our food and our clothes were completely different from the Egyptian and Sudanese.
And by the time the Kingdom of pharaohs Was very strong and of course well-known,
one day Nubians decided to invade Pharaonic Egypt during the 25th dynasty,
The King of Nubia "Tharka" occupied Egypt all the way north for about 2 years until Egypt restored its strength once again,
They eliminated most of Nubia, destroyed the Nubian temples and they tried to destroy anything expressing Nubian history or mentioning Nubians...
By the time the number of Nubians grew again and we were living between Egypt and Sudan, then the disasters began for us
when the Egyptians built Aswan tank in 1902, they displaced some Nubians as the tanks had been built in their lands.
And in 1912 they made an extension for the Aswan tank which forced another group of Nubians to migrate.
But the biggest disaster for us was in 1960 during the period of the previous President Gamal Abdel Nasser,
when he decided to build the ”High Dam”, The High Dam resulted in destroying very large Nubian lands,
Which meant that all Nubians who lived there had to migrate. The Egyptian government promised the Nubians to give them other lands instead of the lands they lost,
and president Gamal Abdel Nasser also promised them that the lake created by the High Dam will be called “Nubia Lake”
but after it finished they called it “Nasser Lake” to celebrate President Abdel Nasser and not the Nubians,
and they also promised each Nubian who had a palm tree will be given a replacement, and those who had a home will be given another one.
All of them were farmers and lived by the Nile so when they migrated them they sent them to “Kom Ambo” near Aswan,
but this is far away from the Nile in the desert, so a lot of Nubians had been migrated already,
and most of the men travelled to Gulf Countries to find jobs because there are no jobs where they were to be migrated.
Maybe only the ladies and children will be there because all jobs are in the Gulf in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Emirates.
But here on Elphantine Island, Aswan Island and nearby places we didn’t migrate because we are far from the High Dam
so we have lived here our whole life and we keep alive our customs traditions,
And our Nubian language, our clothes and our privacy away from Egyptians,
It means that Egyptians can’t live in a Nubian place. There may be friendships but marriage for example is hard and it happens rarely but also we still have our privacy.
And to this day, all Egyptian governments that came after President Abdel Nasser; President Sadat and President Mubarak
They all promised us what we were owed but till now we have nothing. We are still waiting, even from the government that came after the Revolution...
But nothing yet... even with the current president Mohamed Morsi, one of its speakers in his name during the electoral period said “The Nubian community in Egypt”
and “community” means strangers and we are not strangers at all... When you say “Community” say “Sudanese community” “African community” “European community”
but we are not a community and he came to apologize after using this word... We continue to live today and are happy,
and we are proud to live in Egypt because Egypt has a very great history and Egypt is discussed in the Quran and God said “Come to Egypt safely” so we proud to be inside Egypt... Thank god!
Can you tell me about any other language that Nubian speaks? I know that you speak Arabic, but what about Nubian languages?
Of course we have 2 Nubian languages: Kenzi and Fiadicca,
For example here on Elphantine or Aswan islands we use the Kenzi but the other migrated Nubian (90%) use the Fiadicca.
We don’t understand each other. Kenzis don’t understand Fiadiccas and Fiadiccas don’t understand Kenizs...
And of course Egyptians don’t understand either. We are happy of course that we speak Arabic and also speak our native language.
An interesting fact is that they used the Nubian language in October ‘73 war fighting against Israel because Israelis know Arabic very well but don’t know any Nubian, so it was used in the war of October ‘73.
Do you want to say anything else?
Can I thank UNESCO for their efforts in keeping our Nubian Monuments and the history of the Nubians safe, much more than any Egyptian government.
UNESCO established the Nubian Museum, and they are always searching for submerged monuments
They helped immensely to secure submerged Nubian temples. Even here on Elphantine Island, they have a historical site,
and up to today, UNESCO, Germany, and Austria have helped us to find other Nubian Monuments...We are really appreciative of UNESCO.
Ok, Thank you!
You are welcome - Good bye